Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform Part 4

Feed fat, ye locusts, feed!

And, in your ta.s.selled pulpits, thank the Lord That, from the toiling bondman's utter need, Ye pile your own full board.

How long, O Lord! how long Shall such a priesthood barter truth away, And in Thy name, for robbery and wrong At Thy own altars pray?

Is not Thy hand stretched forth Visibly in the heavens, to awe and smite?

Shall not the living G.o.d of all the earth, And heaven above, do right?

Woe, then, to all who grind Their brethren of a common Father down!

To all who plunder from the immortal mind Its bright and glorious crown!

Woe to the priesthood! woe To those whose hire is with the price of blood; Perverting, darkening, changing, as they go, The searching truths of G.o.d!

Their glory and their might Shall perish; and their very names shall be Vile before all the people, in the light Of a world's liberty.

Oh, speed the moment on When Wrong shall cease, and Liberty and Love And Truth and Right throughout the earth be known As in their home above.

1836.

A SUMMONS

Written on the adoption of Pinckney's Resolutions in the House of Representatives, and the pa.s.sage of Calhoun's "Bill for excluding Papers written or printed, touching the subject of Slavery, from the U. S.

Post-office," in the Senate of the United States. Mr. Pinckney's resolutions were in brief that Congress had no authority to interfere in any way with slavery in the States; that it ought not to interfere with it in the District of Columbia, and that all resolutions to that end should be laid on the table without printing. Mr. Calhoun's bill made it a penal offence for post-masters in any State, District, or Territory "knowingly to deliver, to any person whatever, any pamphlet, newspaper, handbill, or other printed paper or pictorial representation, touching the subject of slavery, where, by the laws of the said State, District, or Territory, their circulation was prohibited."

MEN of the North-land! where's the manly spirit Of the true-hearted and the unshackled gone?

Sons of old freemen, do we but inherit Their names alone?

Is the old Pilgrim spirit quenched within us, Stoops the strong manhood of our souls so low, That Mammon's lure or Party's wile can win us To silence now?

Now, when our land to ruin's brink is verging, In G.o.d's name, let us speak while there is time!

Now, when the padlocks for our lips are forging, Silence is crime!

What! shall we henceforth humbly ask as favors Rights all our own? In madness shall we barter, For treacherous peace, the freedom Nature gave us, G.o.d and our charter?

Here shall the statesman forge his human fetters, Here the false jurist human rights deny, And in the church, their proud and skilled abettors Make truth a lie?

Torture the pages of the hallowed Bible, To sanction crime, and robbery, and blood?

And, in Oppression's hateful service, libel Both man and G.o.d?

Shall our New England stand erect no longer, But stoop in chains upon her downward way, Thicker to gather on her limbs and stronger Day after day?

Oh no; methinks from all her wild, green mountains; From valleys where her slumbering fathers lie; From her blue rivers and her welling fountains, And clear, cold sky;

From her rough coast, and isles, which hungry Ocean Gnaws with his surges; from the fisher's skiff, With white sail swaying to the billows' motion Round rock and cliff;

From the free fireside of her untought farmer; From her free laborer at his loom and wheel; From the brown smith-shop, where, beneath the hammer, Rings the red steel;

From each and all, if G.o.d hath not forsaken Our land, and left us to an evil choice, Loud as the summer thunderbolt shall waken A People's voice.

Startling and stern! the Northern winds shall bear it Over Potomac's to St. Mary's wave; And buried Freedom shall awake to hear it Within her grave.

Oh, let that voice go forth! The bondman sighing By Santee's wave, in Mississippi's cane, Shall feel the hope, within his bosom dying, Revive again.

Let it go forth! The millions who are gazing Sadly upon us from afar shall smile, And unto G.o.d devout thanksgiving raising Bless us the while.

Oh for your ancient freedom, pure and holy, For the deliverance of a groaning earth, For the wronged captive, bleeding, crushed, and lowly, Let it go forth!

Sons of the best of fathers! will ye falter With all they left ye perilled and at stake?

Ho! once again on Freedom's holy altar The fire awake.

Prayer-strenthened for the trial, come together, Put on the harness for the moral fight, And, with the blessing of your Heavenly Father, Maintain the right

1836.

TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS s.h.i.+PLEY.

Thomas s.h.i.+pley of Philadelphia was a lifelong Christian philanthropist, and advocate of emanc.i.p.ation. At his funeral thousands of colored people came to take their last look at their friend and protector. He died September 17, 1836.

GONE to thy Heavenly Father's rest!

The flowers of Eden round thee blowing, And on thine ear the murmurs blest Of Siloa's waters softly flowing!

Beneath that Tree of Life which gives To all the earth its healing leaves In the white robe of angels clad, And wandering by that sacred river, Whose streams of holiness make glad The city of our G.o.d forever!

Gentlest of spirits! not for thee Our tears are shed, our sighs are given; Why mourn to know thou art a free Partaker of the joys of heaven?

Finished thy work, and kept thy faith In Christian firmness unto death; And beautiful as sky and earth, When autumn's sun is downward going, The blessed memory of thy worth Around thy place of slumber glowing!

But woe for us! who linger still With feebler strength and hearts less lowly, And minds less steadfast to the will Of Him whose every work is holy.

For not like thine, is crucified The spirit of our human pride And at the bondman's tale of woe, And for the outcast and forsaken, Not warm like thine, but cold and slow, Our weaker sympathies awaken.

Darkly upon our struggling way The storm of human hate is sweeping; Hunted and branded, and a prey, Our watch amidst the darkness keeping, Oh, for that hidden strength which can Nerve unto death the inner man Oh, for thy spirit, tried and true, And constant in the hour of trial, Prepared to suffer, or to do, In meekness and in self-denial.

Oh, for that spirit, meek and mild, Derided, spurned, yet uncomplaining; By man deserted and reviled, Yet faithful to its trust remaining.

Still prompt and resolute to save From scourge and chain the hunted slave; Unwavering in the Truth's defence, Even where the fires of Hate were burning, The unquailing eye of innocence Alone upon the oppressor turning!

O loved of thousands! to thy grave, Sorrowing of heart, thy brethren bore thee.

The poor man and the rescued slave Wept as the broken earth closed o'er thee; And grateful tears, like summer rain, Quickened its dying gra.s.s again!

And there, as to some pilgrim-shrine, Shall cone the outcast and the lowly, Of gentle deeds and words of thine Recalling memories sweet and holy!

Oh, for the death the righteous die!

An end, like autumn's day declining, On human hearts, as on the sky, With holier, tenderer beauty s.h.i.+ning; As to the parting soul were given The radiance of an opening heaven!

As if that pure and blessed light, From off the Eternal altar flowing, Were bathing, in its upward flight, The spirit to its wors.h.i.+p going!

1836.